There was a freedom that came from working alone. Maggie didn’t have to worry about other people. She only had to worry about taking care of herself and working towards her objective. Nothing else mattered.

She’d thought that she would lose her resolve as the years passed. Cassie was a girl left behind, lightyears away, while Maggie’s wanderlust had called the impossible onto the earth and taken her away from Dunburg, perhaps once and for all.

She passed her payment disc across to the ticket collector and waited for the amorphous blob to issue her a ticket to the planet Rangul. The ticket nearly depleted her funds, but Rangul was a place she could always find work.

“You sure you wanna go there, hun?” the amorphous blob asked. “It’s supposed to be brutal this time of year.”

“Yes, please,” Maggie answered. Her communication implant turned the blob’s guttural moaning into the smooth croon of a southern lady.

Rangul reminded her of home. It wasn’t the most hospitable of planets, nor the prettiest, but the ground was solid and the giant violet ferns that grew all over the planet were the closest things to trees she had seen since leaving home.

Not leaving, Maggie told herself. Since she had been taken away.

She made her way onto the massive starship and found her cabin. It was larger than she was used to, and the pallet on the ground was enough for a being twice her size. At least she would be comfortable during the half-stel it took to get to her destination.

Outside of her cabin, she took one of the terrestrial corridors to main hall. Beings who were part of the galactic awareness pretended to be above those who were from unenlightened planets. They were deluded. Space was no different than Earth when it came to how life worked. People weren’t the only ones who sought to prey on the weak.

There were groups of beings who made a living by finding those weak, solitary travelers and enlightening them of all their possessions and their payment discs. Maggie had been one of those fools once. Once was enough for the lesson to take root. She grew to be able to identify them over the years. They took up innocuous disguises, masquerading as families or honeymooning couples.

She saw a pair immediately. The Bravada wasn’t the largest of starships, and the destination meant that it would not be filled with passengers.

“A humanoid,” a person said from behind her. “You don’t see those around often.”

Maggie turned around. It was a familiar voice, though not by her choice. She came across Don more often than she wanted to during her travels. He was a human like her, but that was where the similarity ended.

“Don,” Maggie said. Don nodded toward her. He had fashioned something like a cowboy hat out of synthetic material. Maggie kept her clothing and her demeanor as neutral as possible as she traveled. Don did the opposite. He leaned into all of the stereotypes that the aliens had about humans. He was loud and colorful. He spoke in a southern drawl that wasn’t his own, even though the fake accent would be lost once his speech went through the communication implant.

“It’s nice to see ya again, Maggie. I had something to tell ya,” he said. “I was able to get back to Earth since the last time we saw each other.”

Maggie frowned. Don was a bad liar. She was working her way back to Earth, without affording herself any luxuries or leisure time. He spent half his time and money exploring all that the universe had to offer. There was no way that he had made it back to Earth before her and come back.

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“There’s a job that can take you there. Pays well, too,” Don said.

She refused to get her hopes up. That had happened way too many times before.

“There’s this princess, right,” Don began. Maggie walked away. She’d heard Don tell all kinds of stories, exaggerating his adventures with each retelling. It was interesting that he had completely abandoned reality for the start of a fairytale.

“No, no. She’s from one of the countries on Goraf. A constitutional monarchy, and next in line to the throne. She wants to explore the world before her coronation.”

“So she’s already seen Earth then,” Maggie said.

“She wants to see more,” Don said. “She wants to make it her mission to make Earth a part of the galactic awareness. She thinks it would be a good start to her reign, and prove to people that she is capable of leading her country.”

“So our planet is her project?” Maggie asked. Despite her caution, Don’s story caught her interest.

“Somethin’ like that,” Don said. “She wanted me to be her long-term employee, but ya know me.”

“I do,” Maggie said. Unfortunately.

“So I told her I knew somebody who’d be interested in the job. Humans aren’t common in these parts, ya know. You can see her after this trip is over. She’s due to make her next trip to Earth in a few stels.”

“Her name?” Maggie asked. It was probably nothing. Don was most likely exaggerating an off-the-cuff comment the princess made. But it was too tempting an offer to ignore.

“Sakhya,” Don said. “Tell her I sent you.”

Maggie would not. “Do you want to grab some lunch?”

They walked into the main dining hall of the ship, where Don ate like he wanted to get his ticket’s worth. Nothing in the galactic awareness was better than the memory of her mother’s cooking. Food was just sustenance in the wider galactic awareness. There were some pockets where it was art, but the price tags on such meals were something Maggie couldn’t afford.

“You’ll need energy for the work on Rangul,” he advised her.

“I’m having enough.”

“The royals have high standards. You’ll be expected to be on duty day and night. Also, Earth has changed since you left.”

Maggie nodded, her mouth full. She was aware of how much the world could change in a decade. News traveled far and fast, and she knew the goings on regarding Earth. The world had grown more interlinked. The universe watched on as Earth made its fledgling steps of evolution and development, and Maggie watched more eagerly than most of them. She was planning on going back.

She had no illusions of having people waiting for her or searching for her. Everyone would have moved on long before, including Cassie. She wished she could do the same, but home was a beacon that called to her.

Maggie had lived in boats in oceans of sugared water and in fields of crystal flowers, but at a certain point one tired of the absurd. She wanted a house with a front porch and a swing. She wanted normalcy for the rest of her days, and to be among her own kind.

“I’ll send word that you’re interested,” Don said. “What do I get in exchange?”

Maggie smirked. She expected nothing less from Don.

“I have a small ship off the coast of the Viela peninsula in Kiro. It’s yours to use for the next two years.”

“A boat? In that ocean of sugary water?” Don asked. “That’s all I get?”

Maggie shook her head. “Everyone knows about the sugar, but the ocean has something more.”

Sugar was energy, a universal currency that everyone knew of. But the ocean had something that people of Earth valued, which was useless in most other parts of the universe.

“Gold,” Maggie said. “You can mine for gold in the waters. I collected enough to live comfortable on Earth forever. You can too.”

Don scoffed in disbelief. “Real gold?”

“Pure gold. It’s present in massive amounts along the coast. My boat has a map of where the deposits are.”

Don leaned back into his chair. “Well, I guess both of us are getting a good bargain.”